The Winter King

by C. L. Wilson

  Khamsin turned her head away. When she heard Spring sigh and move to the corner of the room to take Tildy’s chair, Kham let the tears gathered in her eyes spill silently into her pillow.

  Wynter woke alone.

  He knew it before he opened his eyes. Knew it the moment he smelled the scent of his bride, not warm and womanly soft but cooled by the hours that had passed since her departure. She’d left him. In the middle of the night, while he slept in a drugged and exhausted stupor, she’d fled.

  Damn her.

  He opened his eyes and jackknifed up into a sitting position on the bed. He would not tolerate arrogance, he would not tolerate defiance, and he would definitely not tolerate rejection from his bride. She would come when he called and stay until he bid her go. That was a lesson he would see to it she learned as soon as he tracked her down.

  He rubbed his jaw. The arras leaf had left him with a foul taste in his mouth. His bride’s cowardly flight had left him with a temper to match.

  He rose and yanked on his clothes. He winced a little at the sting of the scratches clawed down his back, then smiled in spite of everything. He’d not been the only one maddened by lust last night. Her passion had been just as wild and overwhelming as his. Not a bad way to start a marriage. His smile disappeared. Then again, her enthusiasm probably owed more to the arras leaf they’d both consumed than anything else. Certainly, the moment her head had cleared of the drug’s effects, she’d fled.

  He glanced back at the bed and frowned at the brownish smears on the white linens, recognizing the sight of dried blood. Much more of it than he would have expected from a virgin’s breach. Guilt assailed him as a different explanation for his bride’s flight occurred to him. Had he . . . hurt her?

  Wynter put his hands to his head, closing his eyes and trying to remember, but so much of the night was a blur. He remembered bodies, scorching heat, the slick, clenching feel of hot flesh sheathing him with unbearable tightness. Lips . . . hot and gasping. Breasts . . . Winter’s Frost, what breasts—plump little pigeons, fitting perfectly into the broad palms of his hands, driving him mad with their lush softness and stabbing, hard peaks.

  He’d not been kind or gentle. He knew that. The tormenting burn of arras had driven him wild. But . . . hurt her? Had he done so? Had she cried out against him? Had she begged him to stop and he, too drunk on her father’s idiot drug, not listened?

  Wynter hung his head in shame and closed his eyes against the silent accusation screaming at him from the bloodstained sheets. Brute. Monster. Rapist.

  He was a man of devastating strength, with all the terrible risks and responsibilities that entailed. Even amongst the hard, tough men of the Craig, he stood head and shoulders above most, with bones like Wintercraig granite and rock-hard muscle to match. He had faced a Frost Giant in single combat and emerged victorious. He knew no woman’s strength was a match for him. He knew he could kill with a blow. Always—always!—he kept himself in check when dealing with those weaker than he. He wasn’t above threats—a healthy dose of fear was an excellent antidote to recklessness—but he’d never unleashed his brute force against a woman, and it near slayed him to think the first might have been his wife.

  He drew a deep breath and caught his emotions in a firm grip. Too much of his discipline had been torn away, by anger and arras and overwhelming passion. He was a Winterman, King of the Craig. Wintermen were not plump, self-indulgent peacocks like their southern neighbors, who wallowed in emotion and called it sensitivity. Wintermen were disciplined, unflappable, stoic, as any man must be to survive the rugged, unpredictable, and oft-inhospitable challenges of life in the Craig.

  Instead of wasting his time worrying, he would track down his bride, discover if he had indeed harmed her, and make restitution if he had. But none of that changed the fact that he had made her irrevocably his. He had wedded her and bedded her, and there was no turning back.

  So today, whether she liked it or not—and no matter what sort of brute she thought him—his Summerlea princess would be leaving with him, heading back to the cold, fierce beauty of the Craig. Where, he thought grimly, she would learn to face him with her grievances rather than flee like a thief in the night.

  It took Wynter the better part of an hour to track Autumn down. He found her just as she was leaving a chamber tucked away in a remote part of the palace.

  She looked shocked and horrified to see him. Those pansy purple eyes had great rings beneath them, as if she had slept nary a wink since sneaking from their bed, but it was the fear that struck him like a blow. The door behind her closed with a snick, and she stood before it as if frozen in place. Her voice shook as she said, “Your Grace—you startled me.”

  He raked her from head to toe with a cool, brisk gaze. Her wrists were bare, the dark, creamy skin smooth and unmarred by any sign of last night’s passion. He was sure as often as he’d rubbed his face against her, tasting her skin and breathing in her intoxicating scent, there would be some small abrasion from the edge of his teeth or the rasp of his stubble. Some proof of his claim. Yet her skin remained smooth as rose petals.

  “You look no worse for the wear,” he murmured. “I did not hurt you, then.” The relief he felt was immense, even if some primitive part of him found its fur ruffled by how untouched by him she appeared to be.

  “I . . . no, you didn’t hurt me.”

  “There was blood on the sheets . . . more than I had expected. Did I . . . wound you?”

  She blushed and looked everywhere but at him. “No, of course not,” she assured him in a faint voice. “There is a wound on my back . . . it must have opened while . . . er . . . during . . .”

  Wynter closed his eyes in a brief moment of thanks. “I am glad to know the cause was not any harm I did you,” he said, “but why then did you leave me? Without even a word?”

  She swallowed, and he watched her throat move convulsively. She licked her lips and seemed to be having trouble thinking what to say to him.

  “I had hoped to wake beside you,” he told her. “I thought perhaps we might enjoy with clear heads what your father’s drug clouded last night.” He let his eyes warm, watched the flutter of her pulse in the delicate skin of her throat. She was shockingly beautiful. No doubt about it. But where was the hot rush in his veins? Where was the electrifying connection between them? Surely that had not all been the arras leaf?

  His hands rose to cradle her neck, fingers curled just past her spine, thumbs resting lightly just below her chin. He forced as much gentleness as he could muster into his smile. “Surely, I gave you some pleasure?”

  Her cheeks flushed a dusky rose, and she gave a muffled groan of embarrassment. “Please, Your Grace, this is unseemly.”

  His brows shot up. She’d been no shrinking flower last night. She’d been pure enchantress, untutored but just as driven as he. Just as ravenous for him as he for her. “Unseemly? My queen, the women of my land would say ’tis far more unseemly had I taken my pleasure from you and given you none in return.” She tried to flee, but he caught her and held her fast. He thought—unkindly, it seemed, to make such a comparison—of the little maid who would have spat defiance in his eye rather than whimper as Autumn was now doing. Be still, Wyn, he chided himself. Forget that maid. She is none of your affair.

  “Come now,” he told his reluctant wife. “You fled in the night, without cause that I can see, and now you say a man’s wish to pleasure his wife is unseemly? I know you Summerfolk are not so timid with your desires. Or is it the touch of a Winterman you cannot abide in the light of day?”

  “No . . . it’s not that . . . it’s . . .”

  “Then you will grant me a kiss, wife,” he interrupted in a tone that brooked no refusal, “and greet me as you should have done more properly at daybreak. In my bed. Where I left you last, and from whence you admit I gave you no cause to flee.”

  His thumb traced her lip. He bent his
head to hers. With a protesting squeak, she yanked free of his hand and turned her head so that his lips landed not on her mouth but on the high, flushed curve of her cheek. She pushed ineffectually against his chest, but he caught her hands and twined his fingers with hers.

  Her scent wafted up to him, gardenias and herbs. Familiar . . . yet not. He frowned and leaned closer, inhaling, separating the scents, examining the flavor of them. Something was different . . . missing. She smelled plainer, less intoxicating than she had last night, and there was none of his own scent upon her. Had she spent the morning ridding herself of all traces of him?

  He glanced at the fingers clasped in his own and the frown became an outright scowl. She’d removed his ring, the Wintercraig Star. What kindness he’d hoped to show her shriveled. Her fingers were bare, as if she thought that would undo the vows they had spoken and consummated. Icy rage flooded his veins.

  “Not even one day wed, and already you try to deny me? You flee my bed, scrub my scent from your body, refuse my kiss, and now I see you have even discarded my ring? Is this how Summerlanders honor their word?” He glared, feeling the power surge within him, the cold anger gathering.

  “Your Grace!” she exclaimed. “You’re freezing my hands!”

  He released her with a snarl and thrust her from him. “We leave for Wintercraig within the hour. You will meet me in the bailey by ten o’clock. And when you come, my ring had best be back on your finger. Do you understand me, wife?” He was angry enough to be pleased at the way she blanched and nodded. “Do not defy me on this. I promise you will not like the consequences.”

  The princess—his queen—clutched her throat with shaking, ringless hands and nodded again. Gritting his teeth against the cold rage burning inside him, he spun on his heel and stalked away.

  “Oh, Storm, this was all a mistake. We must find a way to have the marriage annulled.” Distraught, her hair disheveled by the last several minutes of running wild fingers through it, Autumn looked more unsettled than Khamsin had ever seen her before.

  “The wedding cannot be annulled,” Khamsin pointed out. “That was the entire point of last night—to ensure the knot was permanently tied.”

  “But the things he said . . . what he thought to do . . .” Her face flushed bright red. “He tried to kiss me! Right there, in the hall!”

  Kiss? “You didn’t let him, did you?” There was a fierce snap in Kham’s voice that made Autumn look at her in surprise. The very thought of the Winter King and her sister locked in an intimate embrace sent a violent shudder down Khamsin’s spine. The brush she was holding in her hands grew hot, and with a hiss of pain, she dropped it into the half-filled water pail beside her bed. The hairbrush—bearing the imprint of her clenched fingers melted into its metal grip—sizzled when it hit the water.

  “No!” her eldest sister exclaimed. “Of course, I didn’t. I was terrified if I showed the slightest encouragement, he might flip up my skirts and ‘pleasure me’ as he called it, right there in the hallway! He’s a brute! A barbarian!”

  “He’s my husband,” Khamsin corrected. On her left hand, the heavy, beautiful diamond ring winked up at her, its platinum band a cool circle undamaged by the heat that had melted the hairbrush moments ago. “And he thought you were me—or rather that I was you. How did he find you? What did he want?”

  “How should I know how he found me? Someone must have seen Summer and Spring leaving earlier and figured it out. As for what he wanted—I’d say it was you! Or me, because he thought I was you, pretending to be me. Oh, you know what I mean!” She threw up her hands. “Your wounds bled on the sheets—quite a bit, apparently—and he came to make sure he hadn’t sundered you in his great lust last night. I told him he hadn’t.” She peered uncertainly at Storm. “He didn’t, did he? Because you didn’t say, but I hoped the blood was from your back.”

  “No, he didn’t hurt me.” Khamsin reached into the water pail to retrieve the now-cooled brush and dried it off before brushing her hair into some semblance of order.

  He’d worried that he’d wounded her. He’d set her on fire, showered her with gift after selfless gift of pleasure, shattered and remade her time and time again in a crucible of devastating ecstasy—and he worried that he’d been too rough. She’d deceived him—was deceiving him still—and he, the supposedly heartless ice man from the north, had come to make sure he had neither harmed nor disappointed her on their wedding night.

  She lowered her eyes to hide the vulnerability and guilt that one simple gesture of kindness made her feel. Oh, Khamsin, why must everything you touch get so wrong-headed?

  She rolled the length of her hair into a knot and pinned it to the back of her head, wincing a little as the gesture pulled the still-tender new skin on her back. Several more hours of sunlamps and herbs had provided enough healing that she could at least dress without needing drugs to keep her standing. She’d eaten earlier, her belongings were packed, now all she needed to do was don her veils, and she would be ready to go.

  She looked at herself in the mirror. Was she different? She felt different. Her face was wan beneath its rich, Summerlander brown. She pinched her cheeks to add color and touched the raised ridges on her cheekbone where her father’s heated signet had burned her, branding her with the Summer Rose. Tildy had wanted to heal that, but Kham hadn’t let her. She wore it as a badge—a reminder of her home, and of the Summer King who despised her.

  What would Wynter do when he learned the truth of their deception? Would he kill her? Freeze her on the spot with that deadly Gaze of his? Or would the devastating passion they’d shared last night stay his hand?

  She tossed the remaining few personal items from her room in a small satchel and pinned the heavy veils in place over her hair. “It’s time,” she said. This continued deception was a farce, but one she was committed to carrying out. If she could just make it to the carriage without being unmasked, then she would have some hope of making it past the city gate before she was discovered. And if she could make it past the city gate, she had a chance of reaching the first posting stop without being discovered. The farther they got from Summerlea before Wynter realized how he’d been tricked, the less likely he was to kill her on the spot and return for a different princess.

  Or so she told herself.

  “Storm,” Autumn murmured. Tears welled in her eyes. “It should have been me. I should have told father I would be the Winter King’s bride. I was the one his eye settled on first.”

  “Don’t torment yourself. This was my choice.” Khamsin forced a smile, trying for brightness, hoping that at least she’d avoided terrified. “You know how I’ve always dreamed of the ancient heroes who saved Summerlea. Well, this my chance to play Roland Triumphant.”

  “Roland died, Storm.”

  The bright smile faltered. “Yes . . . well . . . maybe Roland isn’t the right example.” She drew the veils down over her face, took a deep breath, and opened the door.

  Downstairs, the court had gathered. Spring and Summer were waiting at the top of the stairs, and they took up flanking positions at Khamsin’s sides as she grew near, threading their arms supportively through hers. Together, they descended the palace steps.

  The Summer King was there, too, looking pale and pained. Too much drink, Kham thought, then remembered how Wynter had forced him to share the wedding cup. Ah, that explained it. But judging from the worn, unhappy look about him, he’d not spent his arras hours gorging on shattering pleasure as she had.

  There was no remorse in his eyes, only fierce loathing, which he tried to hide with a false paternal smile for the benefit of his court. “Daughter,” he murmured, and stepped forward to embrace her. “Enjoy your life,” he taunted on a hiss meant for her ears only. “What’s left of it.”

  She stood stiff and suffered the peck to her veiled cheek. She wanted to taunt him back, to sneer and inform him she had survived the worst he could dish out
and would survive Wynter as well. But that had yet to be seen.

  Metal clanked against stone. A cold, harsh wind swept into the palace, sending Summerlander skirts and doublets swirling. Several ladies cried out and clutched at fashionable curls tossed into disarray.

  Outfitted once more in full plate mail with Gunterfys strapped to his side, Wynter strode into the marbled greeting hall. Temper snapped around him like crackling frost. He caught sight of Khamsin, and his mouth flattened to a grim, bloodless line.

  “Veils again, my queen?” he sneered. He approached her with such scarcely contained force, she was surprised his boots did not strike sparks against the ground. His gaze flickered down to her hands. The sight of the large blue-white diamond glittering on her left hand made the line of his mouth soften slightly. “So, you can follow directions. That’s something, at least.” He caught her hand in his, and the now-familiar flash of energy leapt between them at the point of contact. His pale brows drew together, the golden brown skin furrowing, winter blue eyes narrowing.

  Oh no.

  Her fingers curled, and she gave her hand a tug, trying to free it from his grip. He would not allow it. He lifted her hand, examining the ring of faint bruises and the even fainter abrasions from where he’d pinned her hands to the headboard in one of their more passionate moments last night. His thumb brushed across the Summerlea Rose burning on her inner wrist. He splayed her hand against his, threading his fingers through hers as if measuring how her hand fit in his.

  Slowly, inexorably, he brought her hand to his lips, and on the pretext of pressing a kiss to her hand, he breathed her in, drawing her scent deep into his lungs. A faint shudder rippled through him, followed by absolute stillness.